Green Bag Scheme in Campus !

Green Bag Scheme is introduced to recover the food waste from our campus towards a mass scale composting farm to be converted into organic fertilizer. It promotes the good practice of separation of food waste at source and sustains the food waste collection and management system.

1.) Separation of food waste at source in all eateries

2.) An effective collection and transfer system

3.) A good RORO bins allocation system

A code of practice for the separation of organic waste at source will be introduced once the system is established. 

The food waste includes:

●       Fresh/unusable pre-consumer raw food materials (vegetable skin and root, fruit skin, seed, bone, fat, egg shell, tea bags, spoilt food, etc)

●       Leftover post-consumer food materials (all kinds of leftover food)

Dry recyclable includes:

●       All beverages containers : plastic bottle, aseptic carton, aluminum can, glass bottle

●       All food containers : metal cans, plastic bottle, glass bottle

Residual waste for example:

●       All contaminated plastic and paper packaging

●       Aluminum/plastic foil wrap

●       Styrofoam and other disposable stuffs

Clear guideline/poster will be designed for the café operators and workers to help them in the sorting of different materials.

After the food waste is separated in green garbage bag, it has to be transferred to the RORO bins at UM central waste disposal site. This collection and transfer works are done by JPPHB daily. A proper system has to be planned to make sure the project is feasible to be carry out.

Figure 5: Proposed collection system of food waste from café

Currently, the collection is done manually by contracted workers under JPPHB. The workers job is to transfer the waste from disposal area to the hauling truck or lorry and then to transfer the waste from the truck/lorry to the RORO bins at central waste disposal site. With the introduction of this project, we do not want to incur extra work for JPPHB and the collection workers. Hence, the same rocedures will be remained under the scheme.

The collection of waste at disposal site by JPPHB contracted workers, 2009

A good RORO bins allocation system

            As all the waste are loaded in a truck during a haul; this means the green bags and the usual black rubbish bags will be mixed in a single haul. However, to unload the waste from the truck to the RORO bin, the workers have to separate the loading by color. Green bags will be loaded in one or two designated RORO bins. Therefore, we will design a system for the loading and unloading of green bags in RORO bins at the UM central waste disposal site. 

The loading of waste from hauling truck to RORO bin (27/10//09)

We propose the loading of green bag and black bag be done simultaneously by the workers into the two different RORO bins.

Proposed loading of waste from hauling truck to RORO bin

To ease the positioning of RORO bins by the RORO bin truck as well as the hauling truck, proper marks will be drawing out on the floor and be labeled by words, color or picture. For example:

Marks for the designated position of RORO bins

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The Idea of Organic Waste Diversion (OWD) in Campus !

Since from 1993, The Government of Malaysia (GOM) had initiated recycling program which however had been declared as a failure in year 2000. The recycling program was re-launched again in 2002 with the introduction of the 3-color recycling bins. Nevertheless, the recycling bins are deemed a failure as the recycling rates remain stagnant since then. The recycling efforts in our country are primarily driven by private sector and charitable bodies. Our recycling programs focus primarily on dry recyclable items such as paper, plastic, aluminum tin and metals due to the immediate commercial value. The recovery of food waste is always neglected by the public as it has no commercial value especially in a mixed waste. Besides, food waste especially the left-over consumer food waste is difficult for normal composting. Hence, the food waste made up the most in our waste stream.

In 2007, GOM has introduced a new policy on solid waste management named as Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act. With the establishment of the Act, two government institutes (National Solid Waste Management Department and Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation) are introduced. The direction of the solid waste management in our country relies heavily on these government agencies. The government’s policy on waste management is to move away from the sole dependence on landfilling as the only option for waste disposal toward a more balanced, integrated waste disposal hierarchy.   

Table 1:  MSW composition (K.L.) from various sources

The high fraction of organic waste contributes to the high moisture content and low calorific values in our MSW. Besides, with its “rapidly biodegradable” nature, organic waste is responsible for most of the pollution that arises in a landfill such as landfill gases and leachate. Landfill gases like methane gas and carbon dioxide gas are the most common greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change while landfill leachate causes groundwater and river pollution especially if the landfill is an open dump.  Lower caloric value of the waste can make the introduction of better waste management challenging. It is more difficult to sort the waste, and the quality of the waste for recycling is low. It is also more difficult to incinerate the waste with energy recovery as incineration of mixed municipal waste requires normally that the waste has a minimum average caloric value of 7 MJ (mega joule) per kilo. According to CORE Recycle Energy Sdn Bhd, the caloric value of solid waste in Malaysia is about 6 MJ per kilo. This situation makes it even more challenging to strive toward an integrated solid waste management. < style="clear: both; text-align: center;">  

To achieve any waste reduction goal, the organic fraction of the solid waste, especially the food waste has to be separated at source and diverted from the waste stream to ensure a high percentage of waste recovery in any waste treatment plant such as MRF (Material Recovery Facility) and MBT (Mechanical Biological Treatment). An Organic Waste Diversion (OWD) Project is proposed in University of Malaya campus to divert the organic waste from going to a landfill. The organic wastes to be diverted are food waste, yard waste and wooden bulky waste. The food waste and yard waste will be turned into natural organic fertilizer by vermicomposting process while the wooden bulky waste will be converted into biogas energy by gasification.

A “Green Bag Scheme” will be introduced for the food waste diversion while a “Wood and Yard Waste Scheme” for the diversion of yard waste and wooden bulky waste. For Green Bag Scheme, every cafe operators in UM campus have to dispose  food waste from the eatery areas in the green bags. The use of garbage bags at all eateries is standardized to ease the separation process. The green bags will then be collected by JPPHB (the department that manage the waste collection) and be transferred to the UM central waste disposal site. At the disposal site, the green bags will be unloaded in the designated RORO (Roll-in Roll-off) bin, to be hauled by the appointed waste contractor. The food waste will be sent to a mass scale composting farm to be turned into organic fertilizer. For the wooden bulky waste diversion, this type of waste will be transferred to a biogas recovery plant to be converted into energy by gasification process. A Code of Practice is enforced to ensure the function and sustainability of the Schemes. Capacity building program is carried out to inform and train the kitchen staffs to oblige to the Scheme. 

To make the project a success, we use policy instrument to apply the Code of Practice and market-based instrument (by distributing garbage bags of different colors) to encourage the involved parties to practice separation of food waste at source under the Green Bag Scheme. The concept being used is "economy of scale" and "price advantage".

From the waste audit, it shows that at least 50% of the waste can be diverted upon the project’s full implementation. The overall waste management cost will be reduced by at least 20% with a lower waste disposal contract value. This project is a showcase of separation of organic waste at source, which is a simple and practical, yet effective concept in waste minimization effort in our country. 

Stay tune with the Green Bag Scheme ! 

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The reality of food waste in the world ! ( The Fact )

An estimated 8.3 million tonnes of household food waste is produced each year in the UK, where most of them could be in consumption, Edible food is wasted this way, rendering high costs wastage and adversely impacts on the environment.  The amount of food we throw away is a major contributor to the production of greenhouse gases in the UK.

Source: http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/food_waste/index.html

The UK, US and Europe have nearly twice as much food from the required by the nutritional needs of their populations. Up to half the entire food supply is wasted between the farm and the fork. If the excess crops  fed to livestock are included, European countries have more than three times more food than they need, while the US has around four times more food than is needed, and up to three-quarters of the nutritional value is lost before it reaches people at the end of the food chain.

UK Households waste 25% of all the food they buy. All of the world’s nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.

Source: http://www.feeding5k.org/food-waste-facts.php

There are nearly one billion malnourished people in the world,approximately 40 million tonnes of food wasted by US households, retailers and food services each year would be enough to satisfy the hunger of every one of them.

Love food hate waste campaign in UK

Source:http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Food waste in USA

Source:http://wasteage.com/mag/waste_food_waste_2/

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